^', 


THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  SPANISH 
ADVENTURER 


S.  GEISWOLD  MOELEY 


[Reprint  from  the  University  of  California  Chronicle,  Vol.  XVIII,  No.  1] 


THE    AUTOBIOGRAPHY    OF    A    SPANISH 
ADVENTURER 


S.  Geiswold  Morley 


Standing  in  the  midst  of  a  tide  of  collectivism  such  as 
the  world  has  never  before  seen,  most  of  us  still  feel  a  warm 
thrill  of  pleasure  when  we  read  of  some  foot-loose,  red- 
blooded  human  animal  whose  energy  was  equalled  only 
by  his  social  freedom.  The  blond  beast  in  our  town  is  a 
wretched  neighbor,  but  let  him  be  transplanted  to  a  distant 
century  and  clime,  and  we  experience  a  clandestine  admira- 
tion for  his  spirit  and  his  works  that  bears  no  relation  to 
our  twentieth  century  standard  of  private  behavior.  Today 
only  nations  as  a  whole  dare  to  be  thoroughly  mean,  and 
they  are  slowly  nearing  the  point  of  circumspection.  So 
it  is  w^hen  we  wish  to  stir  the  Adam  in  our  blood  by  the" 
contemplation  of  some  splendid  explosion  of  human  force, 
we  turn  to  Cortes,  Cellini,  or  even  Casanova.  The  unsought 
alliteration  seems  to  suggest  that  the  letter  C  may  be  the 
natural  initial  of  an  adventurous  spirit  crossed  with  an 
itch  for  publicity. 

I  cite  as  witness  Alonso  de  Contreras,  whose  autobio- 
graphy has  been  unearthed  and  published,  after  reposing 
nearly  four  centuries  under  the  dust  of  a  Madrid  library. 
Contreras  was  a  professional  fighter  on  land  and  sea,  who 
rose  from  nothing  to  be  a  Commander  of  the  Knights  of 
Malta,  no  slight  achievement  in  itself.  Not  one  of  the 
shrewd  climbers,  he  never  thought  large  and  never  reached 

a27575 


high  diplomatic  posts.  He  looked  but  a  short  distance  in 
advance;  he  was  an  insubordinate  swashbuckler,  a  dread- 
nought captain,  afraid  neither  of  man  nor  devil,  yet  with 
a  code  of  honor  of  his  own,  and  a  dash  of  piety  that  would 
cause  wonder  were  it  not  so  common  in  that  age.  He 
arrived  too  late  to  form  one  of  the  band  of  conquistadores, 
but  their  spirit  ran  in  his  blood  entire.  Of  such  men 
were  the  armies  of  Spain  in  her  great  days,  and  such  a 
type  explains  many  victories.  His  life-story,  told  with  the 
utmost  frankness,  is  to  a  degree  a  mirror  of  the  time.  More 
completely,  it  is  a  mirror  of  a  soldier's  life  in  the  continual 
wars  of  the  Renaissance;  and  that  a  soldier  in  those  days 
missed  little  of  experience,  be  you  the  judge. 

I 

Our  hero  was  born  in  1582.  By  pure  chance  his  official 
name  was  Contreras,  for  that  was  his  mother's  name, 
which  he  adopted  when  he  first  joined  the  army.  After- 
ward he  wished  to  take  back  the  surname  of  his  father,  but 
it  was  then  too  late,  for  his  service  papers  were  made  out 
to  Contreras.  Before  he  left  his  home  in  Madrid  he  had 
killed  a  school-mate  with  the  knife  of  his  writing-kit  and 
spent  a  year  in  exile  for  the  crime.  Only  his  youth  saved 
him  from  death — the  first  of  many  narrow  escapes.  He 
was  not  yet  fourteen,  and  had  this  past  behind  him,  when 
he  shook  off  his  mother's  restraining  hand,  his  father 
being  dead,  and  set  out  after  the  trumpets  of  the  cardinal- 
prince  Albert  archduke  of  Austria.  He  was  only  a  camp- 
follower,  a  hanger-on  watching  for  scraps,  but  on  the 
first  day  he  gambled  away  his  last  real  and  every  rag  of 
clothes  upon  his  body:  '^ which  clearly  showed  that  I  was 
to  be  a  soldier. ' '  In  fact  he  contrived  to  pry  open  a  place 
as  cook's  boy,  and  was  soon  allowed  to  serve  the  king, 
though  under  age. 

With  that  began  vicissitudes  as  varied  as  those  of 
Ulysses,  and  some  were  staged  in  the  same  scenes.  The 
Grecian  archipelago  was  the  region  in  which  the  young 


man  first  made  his  marks  as  an  amphibious  fighter.  He 
was  proud  of  his  intimate  knowledge  of  its  harbours  and 
inlets  and  also  a  little  proud  of  the  respect  his  name 
inspired  in  its  inhabitants.  Eaiding  the  Turks  was  the 
great  game  of  the  day,  with  the  whole  Mediterranean  as 
the  field.  Contreras  fought  now  on  Sicilian  galleys,  now  on 
those  of  the  Knights  of  Malta,  and  began  to  enjoy  the  quick 
prosperity  of  successful  pirates.  After  one  expedition  * '  my 
share  of  booty  was  a  hat  full  to  the  brim  of  double  reals, 
with  the  which  my  spirit  began  to  swell ;  but  within  a  few 
days  it  was  all  gamed  away  and  squandered." 

A  tavern  brawl  and  a  dead  man  sent  him  fleeing  with 
two  companions  from  Palermo  in  a  stolen  boat;  they  had 
not  been  in  Naples  a  month  when  another  street  row  drove 
him  to  Malta,  hidden  in  a  ship's  storeroom.  We  must  be 
just,  and  state  that  he  himself  shed  no  blood  in  these 
affrays;  had  he  been  guilty,  he  would  not  have  failed  to 
tell  us,  in  his  vivid,  dialogued  style  that  reads  like  Dumas. 
Then  began  his  close  connection  with  the  Order  of  St.  John 
of  Jerusalem,  also  called  the  Knights  of  Malta  and 
Hospitallers. 

At  the  age  of  nineteen  he  was  singled  out  by  the  Grand 
Master  for  his  knowledge  of  the  Archipelago  and  its  lan- 
guages to  discover  the  objective  of  the  great  Turkish  fleet 
that  every  year  left  Constantinople  to  cruise  about  the  east- 
ern end  of  the  Mediterranean.  In  certain  years  it  raided 
some  unprotected  spot  in  the  southern  Christian  possessions. 
So  succesful  was  the  young  captain  that  with  his  one 
galley  he  watched  the  course  of  the  fifty-three  hostile 
vessels,  outraced  them  to  Keggio  whither  they  were  bound, 
and  gave  the  alarm.  The  General  of  the  Sea  found  an 
alert  coast  awaiting  him  and  retired  for  the  year  with 
heavy  loss.  This  was  only  the  first  of  a  series  of  exploits 
that  made  the  name  of  "Captain  Alonso"  known  and 
respected  in  all  the  islands. 

In  one,  Stampalia,  where  there  was  no  Turkish  governor, 
he  was  by  common  consent  the  arbiter  of  all  disputes : 


''for  I  never  did  them  harm,  but  helped  them  whenever 
I  could ;  when  I  had  made  a  prize  and  could  not  carry  it  to 
Malta,  I  gave  the  island  the  vessel  and  sold  it  the  wheat  or 
rice  and  linen,  which  were  the  usual  cargo;  and  such  was 
their  gratitude  that  whenever  they  had  a  weighty  dispute, 
they  said  to  each  other:  'let  us  wait  for  Captain  Alonso' 
(thus  they  called  me),  'that  he  may  decide.'  And  when  I 
came  though  they  were  compelled  to  wait  a  year,  they  told 
me  the  facts  and  I  gave  sentence,  which  they  abided  by  as 
if  I  had  been  a  royal  council;  and  then  we  all  dined 
together. ' ' 

To  this  island  the  Captain  restored  its  priest  or  papas, 
after  he  had  been  stolen  by  a  piratical  Christian  and  held 
for  ransom.  A  grand  ceremony  was  held  in  the  church 
to  celebrate  his  return.  Contreras  was  placed  in  a  chair 
alone,  with  a  carpet  beneath  his  feet.  "The  priest  cast 
incense  upon  me  and  then  kissed  me  upon  the  cheek,  and 
then  came  all  the  people,  men  and  women,  doing  the 
same;  true  it  is  that  some  of  the  latter  were  handsoi^ie, 
whose  kisses  I  was  not  sorrj^  to  get,  for  with  them  I  was 
compensated  for  the  many  I  had  taken  from  bewhiskered 
lips — and  so  bewhiskered ! ' '  Then  the  islanders  wished 
him  to  stay  and  be  their  ruler,  and  to  marry  the  daughter 
of  their  head  man.  They  would  even  have  kept  him  by 
force,  but  his  crew  learning  the  affair,  unshipped  a  cannon 
and  set  it  up  on  land  to  cover  the  town;  so  that  in  the 
end  the  Greeks  were  fain  to  let  their  hero  depart,  with 
many   presents. 

His  craft  and  daring  were  limitless.  Once  he  escaped 
two  galleys  by  signaling  from  his  masthead  to  a  Christian 
fleet  which  did  not  exist;  the  Turks  took  alarm  and  fled. 
Again,  being  out  of  fresh  water  on  the  coast  of  Tripoli 
and  finding  the  well  guarded  he  raised  a  flag  of  truce 
and  after  parley  exchanged  twenty-seven  shields-full  of 
ship's  biscuit  for  as  many  casks  of  water.  He  buried  on 
the  beach  some  of  his  sailors  who  had  been  killed  in  the 
skirmish ;  next  morning  they  had  been  uncovered  and  their 


noses  and  ears  cut  off  ''as  a  present  to  Mahomet."  "I  in 
my  anger  told  them  I  would  do  the  same  to  two  prisoners 
that  I  had.  They  replied  they  would  rather  have  ten 
sequins  than  thirty  Moors;  and  so  in  their  presence  I  cut 
off  the  ears  and  noses  of  the  captives  and  threw  them  on 
the  ground  saying:  'take  these  too!'  and  tying  the  two 
prisoners  back  to  back  I  put  out  to  sea  and  before  their 
eyes  threw  them  in,  and  went  toward  Alexandria." 

In  another  year,  when  it  was  learned  that  the  Grand 
Turk  was  preparing  an  armada  and  that  a  certain  Jewish 
collector  of  Salonica  was  sure  to  know  of  its  destination, 
Contreras  was  sent  to  kidnap  him,  "as  if  I  were  to  go  to 
a  market  for  some  pears."  He  did  his  errand.  As  a 
result  of  the  expedition  the  Captain's  picture  was  dis- 
tributed by  the  Turks  throughout  the  whole  East  and 
Barbary,  with  an  awful  punishment  promised  him  if  cap- 
tured. He  was  never  taken,  but  his  pilot  less  lucky  was 
seized  within  four  months.  He  was  flayed  alive  and  his 
skin  stuffed  with  straw,  suspended  over  the  gate  of  Rhodes. 
Such  were  the  risks  of  the  age. 

The  acquirement  of  riches  was,  as  may  be  supposed, 
the  last  thought  of  Contreras.  When  he  reached  port 
with  one  of  his  fine  prizes,  he  took  care  to  set  aside  a  portion 
for  the  church  of  Nuestra  Senora  de  la  Gracia;  the  rest 
went  "tout  aux  tavernes  et  aux  fiUes."  Not  the  least  of 
his  merits  as  an  author  is  the  lively  and  intimate  picture 
he  presents  of  the  life  led  by  the  Knights  of  St.  John  in 
that  degenerate  day,  after  they  had  become  rather  pirates 
than  hospitallers,  when  Malta  was  one  of  the  world's  great 
slave  marts,  and  the  vows  of  chastity,  poverty  and  obedi- 
ence were  mere  sounds  upon  the  lips. 

II 

One  day  a  vessel  bound  for  Spain  touched  at  Malta. 
"Remembering  my  country  and  my  mother,  to  whom  I 
had  never  written  nor  sent  any  news  of  myself,  I  deter- 
mined to  ask  leave  of  absence  from  the  Grand  Master,  who 


granted  it  unwillingly,  touching  his  face  to  mine  as  we 
took  leave." 

In  an  evil  hour  the  headstrong  Captain  forsook  the  vessel 
he  commanded  and  the  sea  that  jdelded  him  such  easy  gain. 
On  land  he  could  no  longer  pillage  Turks,  the  sworn  enemies 
of  Christendom.  He  was  no  longer  his  own  master,  as  he 
was  when  once  his  ship  put  Malta  below  the  horizon. 
Contreras  looked  in  upon  his  mother,  who  had  re-married,  in 
spite  of  the  sixteen  offspring  of  her  first  experience.  She 
was  afraid  of  her  big  soldier  son,  lest  he  should  disapprove 
of  his  step-father ;  but  he  recommended  obedience  and  went 
his  way.  As  no  captaincy  was  vacant  in  the  Spanish  army, 
he  accepted  the  post  of  ensign  in  a  company,  and  was  sent 
to  drum  up  recruits  in  Andalusia.  Of  his  adventures  in 
this  station  it  is  better  not  to  speak,  but  they  were  neither 
few  nor  insipid.  At  Hornachos,  a  village  of  moriscos  in 
Extremadura,  he  discovered  a  large  deposit  of  muskets 
and  bullets  in  a  private  house.  He  reported  them  to  the 
royal  commissioner,  who  told  him  to  say  nothing.  This 
affair  contained  the  germs  of  serious  danger,  but  they  did 
not  develop  for  five  years.  He  wounded  his  captain  in  an 
inpromptu  duel,  feminae  causa  and  was  not  punished  for 
it.  Soon  after,  the  company  was  placed  on  a  peace  footing, 
and  Contreras  obtained  service  in  Sicily,  then  and  much 
later  Spanish  soil.  His  skill  at  sea  was  remembered,  and 
he  was  sent  on  a  privateering  expedition  that  brought  him 
wealth  enough  to  keep  a  stable.  On  a  previous  occasion 
he  had  replied,  when  invited  to  mount  a  horse  that  ''he 
was  accustomed  to  ride  nothing  but  a  ship." 

In  1606,  according  to  history,  the  united  forces  of  Sicily 
and  Malta,  commanded  by  Juan  de  Padilla,  undertook  the 
capture  of  Hammamet,  a  town  south  of  Tunis.  The  expedi- 
tion ended  in  a  great  disaster,  and  I  wish  Contreras* 
account  of  the  failure  were  not  too  long  to  transcribe,  for 
it  might  stand  as  a  classic  description  of  panic  in  war.  The 
troops  landed  and  stormed  the  walls,  as  per  orders,  and 
began  to  collect  booty  within,  while  seven  hundred  men 


stood  guard  outside.  Then,  without  command  or  method, 
no  one  knew  why,  a  few  began  to  re-embark  in  the  small 
boats.  The  word  passed  from  one  to  another,  the  guard 
broke  ranks,  and  all  the  soldiers,  losing  their  discipline 
completely,  crowded  to  the  shore.  The  Moors,  who  had 
hidden  in  cisterns  or  fled,  returned  to  the  attack;  they 
mounted  the  walls  and  turned  the  cannon  against  the 
stupefied  Christians:  ''for  if  God  had  decreed  it,  how- 
could  we  keep  our  judgment?  and  He  took  it  from  all  of 
us  that  day."  A  storm  of  sudden  violence  arose,  making 
it  impossible  for  the  boats  to  approach  the  shore;  and 
there  stood  the  huddled  mass  of  Christians  twelve  hundred 
or  more,  while  a  bare  hundred  Moors  struck  them  down 
with  lances  and  swords  and  clubs.  Some  rushed  into  the 
sea,  not  even  thinking  to  remove  their  heavy  armor;  of 
them  was  Contreras,  and  he  was  one  of  two  picked  up, 
half  drowned,  by  a  small  boat.  Juan  de  Padilla  himself 
was  drowned,  and  it  was  a  sad  fleet  that  returned  to  the 
islands.  ''We  reached  Palermo  with  the  galleys'  lights 
draped  in  black  and  the  awnings  spread,  though  it  was 
August,  rowing  so  aimlessly  that  it  was  a  pity  to  see; 
and  more  when  so  many  boats  came  to  ask,  one  for  a 
husband,  and  others  for  a  son  or  a  comrade  or  a  friend, 
and  we  must  needs  answer : '  they  are  dead ; '  for  it  was  true ; 
and  the  shrieks  of  the  women  made  the  oars  of  the  galleys 
to  weep." 

The  captain's  only  matrimonial  experience  ended  like- 
wise in  catastrophe.  He  relates  it  entire  in  a  scant  page, 
more  laconically  than  is  his  wont,  and  with  evident  feeling. 
He  married  a  lady  from  Madrid,  the  widow  of  a  rich 
judge.  They  lived  together  happily  more  than  a  year  and 
a  half;  then  he  was  informed  that  a  friend,  "to  whom  I 
would  have  trusted  my  soul, ' '  was  supplanting  him.  ' '  And 
I,  who  was  not  sleeping,  pretended  to  take  no  note,  until 
their  fortune  had  it  that  one  morning  I  found  them 
together.  They  died.  May  God  keep  their  souls  in  heaven 
if  at  that  moment  they  repented.     There  was  much  more 


10 


to  the  matter,  but  I  write  even  this  unwillingly.  I  will  only 
say  that  of  all  the  property  I  took  not  a  cent,  naught  but 
my  own  service  papers;  all  the  rest  went  to  a  son  by  her 
first  husband." 

Ill 

The  soil  of  Spain  has  in  all  times  produced  two 
flowers,  wholly  distinct  in  color  and  aroma.  The  first  is 
the  white  lily  of  mysticism,  struggling  up  toward  the  blue 
sky  with  a  power  of  aspiration  and  a  depth  of  yearning 
known  only  to  the  greatest  minds  and  hearts.  Saint 
Theresa  and  Luis  de  Leon  were  the  chosen  fruit  of  the 
spirit,  but  they  were  not  alone.  The  second  is  the  red 
creeper  of  roguery,  the  very  essence  of  realistic  unscrupul- 
ousness,  delighting  in  filth,  aiming  only  at  immediate 
pleasure.  In  fiction  the  picaros  were  called  Lazarillo  de 
Tormes,  Guzman  de  Alfarache,  Paul  of  Segovia;  and  in 
life  they  could  not  be  numbered.  But  the  white  lily  and 
the  red  vine  both  plunged  their  roots  into  the  same  soil, 
were  both  nourished  by  the  same  rich  nature,  the  chief 
ingredient  of  which  is  passion,  unbridled  southern  passion, 
direct  and  unashamed. 

These  refiections  were  suggested  by  Captain  Contreras 
himself,  creature  of  passion  if  such  there  ever  were.  In 
his  own  nature  he  bore  the  germs  of  both  its  diverse  off- 
shoots. His  life  as  a  whole  reads  like  a  picaresque  romance, 
and  one  episode  in  it  like  the  conversion  of  Loyola.  A 
mystic  Don  Alonso  certainly  was  not,  but  his  religion,  never 
disowned,  went  beneath  the  skin.  In  the  year  1608  he 
returned  to  Madrid  to  solicit  a  post.  Blocked  by  the  notor- 
ious favorite  Rodrigo  Calderon,  he  had  the  temerity  to 
appeal  direct  to  Philip  III  at  the  Escurial.  For  his  trouble 
he  was  ordered  not  to  set  a  foot  in  the  Escurial  again  on 
pain  of  death.  "And  I  went  riding  back  to  Madrid,  and 
in  those  seven  leagues  I  took  reckoning  with  myself,  and 
resolved  to  go  into  the  desert  to  serve  God,  and  no  longer 
Court  nor  Palace." 


11 


'  *  I  bought  what  is  needful  for  an  hermitage ;  hair-cilice, 
scourge,  sack-cloth  for  a  frock,  a  sun-dial,  many  penitential 
books,  seeds,  a  skull  and  a  little  hoe."  Thus  equipped, 
behold  him  setting  forth  for  the  Moncayo,  a  large  mountain 
mass  on  the  border  between  Old  Castile  and  Aragon.  The 
customs  inspectors  open  his  sack,  and,  seeing  the  imple- 
ments, are  horrified:  "  'Sir,  whither  go  you  with  this?'  I 
said:  'To  serve  another  King  a  space,  for  I  am  tired.' 
And  they,  seeing  I  was  not  poor,  pitied  me ;  above  all  my 
mule-boy,  who  wept  like  a  child."  But  he  was  not  to  be 
dissuaded  by  tears,  nor  by  the  entreaty  of  some  friendly 
knights  of  Malta  on  the  way,  nor  by  the  sermons  of  the 
bishop  of  Tarazona,  "setting  forth  the  thousand  obstacles 
and  my  youth;"  nor  by  an  old  friend,  the  corregidor  of 
Agreda,  "who  almost  changed  my  intention."  In  spite 
of  all  he  perched  his  hermitage  on  a  mountain  slope  half 
a  league  from  the  town  of  Agreda.  Nearby  there  was 
a  monastery  of  barefoot  Franciscans,  and  he  adopted  their 
habit.    He  thus  describes  the  life  he  led. 

' '  Every  day  I  came  to  the  monastery  to  hear  mass,  and 
was  besieged  by  the  friars  to  join  them,  but  I  would  not. 
Saturdays  I  entered  the  city  and  begged  alms;  I  took  no 
money,  but  oil,  bread  and  garlic,  which  were  my  food; 
for  I  ate  three  times  a  week  a  mess  of  garlic  and  bread  and 
oil,  all  cooked  together,  and  the  other  days  bread  and 
water  and  many  herbs  that  are  on  that  mountain.  I  con- 
fessed and  received  the  sacrament  every  Sunday.  I  took  the 
name  of  Brother  Alonso  of  the  Mother  of  God.  Some 
days  the  friars  invited  me  to  eat  with  them,  to  the  end 
of  persuading  me  to  join  their  order ;  and  when  they  saw 
it  was  not  to  be  done,  they  beset  me  to  leave  off  the  habit 
or  frock  of  their  order  that  I  wore.  They  succeeded  in 
that,  and  I  had  to  change  my  garb,  much  against  my  will, 
and  put  on  that  of  the  Victorine  Friars;  and  I  believe 
that  if  there  had  been  any  of  their  order  in  the  neighbor- 
hood I  would  have  had  the  same  trouble;  so  great  desire 
had  these  friars  to  make  me  enter  religion! 


12 

''I  spent  about  seven  months  in  this  life,  without  a 
bad  word  being  said  of  me ;  I  Avas  perfectly  content,  and  I 
promise  you  that  if  I  had  not  been  dragged  away  by  force  as 
I  was,  and  if  I  had  stayed  there  till  today,  many  a  miracle 
I  should  have  performed." 

What  was  the  brute  force  that  came  to  tear  Brother 
Alonso  of  the  Mother  of  God  from  the  path  of  sainthood, 
and  set  him  down  once  more  in  the  midst  of  the  worldly 
turmoil  that  he  had  renounced?  Nothing  else  than  that 
forgotten  deposit  of  arms  which,  long  before,  he  had  seen  in 
the  house  of  a  morisco  at  Hornachos,  and  had  not  reported, 
since  the  royal  commissioner  had  bidden  him  to  be  silent. 

The  unhappy  descendants  of  the  Moors,  whose  natural 
hatred  of  their  victorious  enemies  had  not  been  mitigated 
by  just  or  wise  treatment  after  the  conquest  of  Granada, 
were  soon  to  be  driven  from  the  land  their  ancestors  had 
won  nine  centuries  before.  Harassed  in  their  home  life, 
in  their  beliefs,  in  their  methods  of  earning  bread,  they 
were  treated  by  the  Christian  populace  more  as  slaves  and 
outlaws  than  as  fellow-Spaniards.  In  1609  the  attempt 
at  their  wholesale  expulsion  was  to  be  made,  and  the 
moriscos  suspecting  a  coup  the  nature  of  which  they  were 
unable  to  learn,  were  restless,  accumulated  stores  of  weapons 
and  infested  the  highways.  The  authorities  were  more  than 
ever  alert  to  frustrate  a  rebellion.  This  state  of  tension  is 
the  explanation  of  Contreras'  curious  and  dangerous 
adventure. 

While  working  peacefully  one  day  about  his  hermitage, 
he  was  astonished  to  see  a  body  of  armed  men  approach. 
He  was  seized,  manacled  and  taken  to  Madrid.  Some  time 
passed  before  he  learned  his  offense.  It  was  five  years 
after  the  discovery  of  weapons  at  Hornachos,  and  some 
ferret-nosed  Dogberry  had  just  heard  of  the  case  and 
decided  to  explore  it.  The  ensign  had  learned  of  the  arms 
and  had  not  reported  them;  ergo,  he  had  taken  a  bride. 
He  was  now  in  retirement  between  Castile  and  Aragon, 
in  a  mountainous  stronghold;  ergo,  he  was  himself  the 


13 


king  of  the  moriscos,  and  was  about  to  head  an  uprising ! 
Such  was  police  logic  of  the  day,  and  it  nearly  cost  the 
Captain  his  life.  He  was  thrown  into  prison,  questioned, 
taken  to  Hornachos  to  identify  the  house,  confronted  with 
the  commissioner,  who  denied  in  toto,  tortured  (not  too 
severely)  and  finally  released  on  parole.  Contreras,  eager 
above  all  to  clear  his  name  and  that  of  his  family,  broke 
parole  to  gather  testimony  from  some  of  the  soldiers  who 
had  been  with  him  at  the  time.  Then  he  returned  to  Madrid 
to  give  himself  up,  and  found  that  he  had  done  the  best 
thing  possible.  He  was  at  once  acquitted,  given  a  goodly 
sum  of  money  and  a  captain's  commission  in  Flanders. 
The  commissioner,  who  was  rich  and  had  backers  of  high 
station,  was  let  off  with  a  short  exile.  Thus  ended  our 
hero's  only  attempt  to  behave  like  a  saint. 

IV 

To  relate  all  of  his  adventures  would,  as  he  says  himself, 
take  more  paper  than  there  is  in  Genoa.  He  served  two 
years  in  Flanders  in  time  of  peace.  Having  returned  to 
Malta,  his  early  haunt,  he  was  admitted  to  the  lowest  of 
three  ranks  of  Hospitallers,  as  serving  brother,  "although 
some  Knights  opposed  me,  saying  that  I  had  two  notorious 
murders  to  my  name."  He  was  thereby  entitled  to  wear 
the  habit  and  to  be  tried  by  the  courts  of  his  Order  instead 
of  the  royal  tribunals  when  at  fault,  which  was  not  seldom. 
He  was  once  imprisoned  for  a  brawl,  and  twice,  like  Cellini, 
poisoned  by  his  enemies.  Luck  and  a  stout  constitution 
brought  him  off  alive  and  free.  In  1618  he  was  sent  to  the 
West  Indies  in  command  of  two  vessels,  and  had  the  advant- 
age, so  he  says,  in  an  engagement  with  the  ships  of  Sir 
Walter  Raleigh.  Soon  after,  he  relieved  the  garrison  of 
Mehediah,  on  the  Moroccan  coast.  With  one  small  vessel 
he  passed  through  the  besieging  fleet  and  carried  supplies 
to  the  town.  It  was  volunteer  work,  which  others  had 
refused,  and  it  procured  Contreras  a  personal  interview 


14 


with  the  king,  then  Philip  IV,  and  promises  of  advance- 
ment that  were  never  fulfilled.  It  is  true  that  he  Avas  offered 
a  present  of  three  hundred  ducats  with  an  expression  of 
regret  that  the  sum  was  not  larger,  but  he  declined,  saying : 
* '  Sir,  I  do  not  need  money  if  it  is  so  scarce ;  I  seek  fame, 
not  monej^" 

It  is  singular  that  the  middle  portion  of  the  autobio- 
graphy is  written  with  less  wealth  of  detail  than  the  pages 
devoted  to  the  joyous,  harum-scarum  youth.  Perhaps  the 
writer  felt  at  liberty  to  give  his  imagination  freer  reign  in 
the  years  more  distant  from  him.  Then  too,  as  he  ap- 
proached middle  life  his  deeds  were  no  less  bold,  but  they 
were  isolated  by  long  intervals  of  waiting  for  positions, 
of  dancing  attendance  on  the  court,  of  wire-pulling,  neces- 
sary but  irksome,  of  complaints  against  his  superiors. 
Contreras  was  not  tactful;  he  was  a  forthright  man  who 
settled  a  dispute  by  the  sword  whenever  possible.  He 
always  preferred  the  justice  of  might  to  that  of  the  ap- 
pointed tribunals,  and  he  was  more  likely  to  win  by  the 
former  method.  If  he  was  ever  worsted  in  a  hand-to-hand 
combat,  he  does  not  tell  us  of  it.  No  cowboy  could  take 
greater  pride  in  being  the  first  to  draw. 

For  sixteen  months  he  was  governor  of  the  island  of 
Pantellaria,  lying  between  Sicily  and  Tunis.  As  he  had 
little  occupation  there,  Contreras'  religious  fervor  revealed 
itself  once  more,  this  time  in  an  architectural  manifestation. 
He  renovated  an  old  thatched  church  on  the  island,  pro- 
cured wood  from  Sicily  for  the  roof,  and  even,  modest 
Mecaenas,  imported  a  painter  to  decorate  the  interior. 
The  shrewd  Captain  may  have  harbored  an  ulterior  motive 
beneath  his  zeal.  Very  soon  he  visited  Rome  and  obtained 
from  Pope  Urban  VIII  in  a  private  interview  what  had 
been  refused  to  his  previous  petitions.  He  was  granted  a 
brief  excusing  him  from  the  residence  and  caravans  re- 
quired of  a  member  of  the  order  of  St.  John  before  he  was 
eligible  to  a  commandery ;  much  more,  another  brief  ' '  which 
orders  the  Religion,  in  consideration  of  my  services,  to 


15 


receive  me  into  the  rank  of  Knight,  enjoying  the  privilege 
of  seniority  and  of  eligibility  to  all  the  knight  command- 
eries  and  dignities  which  the  Knights  of  Justice  can 
obtain."  It  was  not  easy  to  persuade  the  Papal  ministers 
to  concur  in  these  unprecedented  favors,  but  with  the  aid 
of  the  Spanish  ambassador  their  consent  was  gained.  As 
soon  as  possible  Contreras  returned  to  Malta  to  present 
his  briefs.  ''Without  delay  they  were  obeyed,  at  which 
they  armed  me  Knight  with  all  due  solemnities,  and  gave 
me  a  Bull  which  I  esteem  more  than  I  would  to  be  a  son  of 
Prince  Carlos,  in  which  it  is  said  that  for  my  notable  deeds 
and  exploits  I  was  armed  Knight,  having  right  to  all  the 
commanderies  and  dignities  enjoyed  by  all  the  Knights  of 
Justice.  That  day  there  were  double  rations  at  a  great 
banquet. ' ' 

To  appreciate  fully  how  great  was  the  distance  traversed 
by  Contreras  in  rising  from  pot-boy  to  Knight  of  Justice 
of  the  Order  of  St.  John  of  Jerusalem,  wholly  by  his  own 
efforts,  it  is  necessary  to  recall  the  rules  of  the  proud  and 
ancient  Order,  then,  it  is  true,  somewhat  relaxed  by  the 
license  of  the  time.  No  doubt  Contreras  had  taken  the 
vows  of  poverty,  chastity  and  obedience  when  he  was 
received  as  serving  brother ;  he  had  kept — possibly  the  last. 
His  fellow  Knights  were  in  no  better  case,  and  there  was 
another  obstacle  of  greater  moment.  The  members  were 
divided  into  three  ranks.  Knights,  Chaplains  and  Sergeants 
or  Serving  Brothers,  the  first  and  last  being  open  to  laymen. 
It  was  not  difficult  to  become  a  serving  brother ;  Contreras 
had  been  admitted  in  his  thirtieth  year.  The  Knights 
were  of  two  classes.  Knights  of  Justice  and  Knights  of 
Grace.  The  latter  might  be  choosen  for  superlative  merit, 
but  the  former  were  required  to  prove  sixteen  quarterings 
of  nobility ;  thus  they  were  Knights  ' '  justly. ' '  Don  Alonso 
never  in  his  most  boastful  moments  claims  for  his  parents 
anything  more  than  honorable  poverty  and  untarnished 
Christianity  (for  the  authorities  had  investigated  his 
ancestry  to  the  fourth  generation  at  the  time  of  his  trial 


16 

for  rebellion,  and  had  reported  no  trace  of  Moor  or  Jew). 
On  merit  only  he  should  have  been  elected  a  Knight  of 
Grace.  The  special  favor  dispensed  him  by  the  Pope 
consisted  in  the  command  that  he  should  be  admitted  to 
the  highest,  the  exclusively  noble  rank.  This  took  place 
about  the  year  1627. 


For  a  time  following  Contreras,  in  fine  spirits  and  em- 
ployed in  a  region  where  he  was  given  a  free  hand,  found 
again  the  devil-may-care  spirit  and  the  vivid  narrative 
inspiration  of  his  youth.  He  served  in  the  Spanish  force 
occupying  the  kingdom  of  Naples,  and  was  stationed  often 
in  outlying  districts  where  he  was  his  own  master  as  he 
had  been  when  captain  of  a  privateer.  I  cannot  forbear 
to  offer  one  example  of  his  methods,  and,  as  best  I  may, 
of  his  style. 

' '  In  the  Casales  of  Capua  there  is  a  usage  most  harmful 
to  the  poor;  and  it  is  that  the  rich  folk  who  are  liable  to 
have  soldiers  billeted  upon  them  send  one  of  their  sons 
into  the  first  holy  orders,  and  to  him  make  over  all  their 
property.  With  this  they  are  exempted  from  furnishing 
lodgings,  and  the  Archbishop  defends  them  because  they 
maintain  him.  I  reported  this  knavery  to  the  Bishop  and 
he  told  me  it  was  just.  That  angered  me,  and  I  withdrew 
my  soldiers  from  the  houses  of  the  poor  and  took  them  to 
the  rich,  and  asked:  'Which  is  the  room  of  the  priest?' 
They  said:  'This  one;'  and  I:  'It  shall  remain  as  spotless 
as  the  day  of  the  Lord;  and  these  others,  who  sleeps  in 
them?'  'Sir,  the  father,  the  mother,  the  sisters  and  the 
brothers;'  and  in  them  I  quartered  three  or  four  soldiers. 
They  protested  to  the  Archbishop  and  he  wrote  me  saying 
I  should  have  a  care,  for  I  was  excommunicated.  I  laughed 
at  it;  and  one  of  those  'wild  priests'  (so  they  are  called 
in  that  kingdom,  because  they  have  only  the  first  orders, 
and  many  of  them  are  married),  bestrode  a  mare  to  com- 


17 


plain  to  the  Archbishop ;  but  a  soldier  jerked  the  horse  back, 
and  told  him  to  wait  till  I  had  been  informed.  The  mare 
knew  the  bit  no  better  than  the  master  Latin,  so  she  reared 
and  cast  him  on  the  ground,  which  did  him  no  good.  Hurt 
as  he  was,  he  went  on  to  enter  his  complaint;  at  that  the 
Bishop  sent  me  word  I  was  excommunicated  by  virtue  of 
the  chapter  quisquis  pariente  del  diablo.  I  made  answer: 
'Take  care  what  you  do;  I  know  nothing  of  the  chapter 
quisquis,  and  as  for  being  a  relative  of  the  devil,  I  am  not 
one  nor  was  ever  such  in  my  ancestry;  beware,  for  if  I 
submit  to  being  excommunicated,  no  man  is  safe  from  me 
unless  he  hides  in  the  fifth  sphere;  to  that  end  God  gave 
me  ten  fingers  on  my  two  hands  and  one  hundred  and  fifty 
Spanish  soldiers!'  He  received  my  letter,  and  gave  me 
no  answer,  but  sent  word  to  the  Casales  that  they  should 
urge  the  Viceroy  to  remove  me,  and  that  he  would  do  the 
same,  for  he  saw  no  other  remedy.  They  got  me  out  as  soon 
as  might  be;  but  meanwhile  the  rich  paid  dearly  without 
a  single  poor  man  suffering.  And  my  rule  was  not  so  short 
but  it  lasted  more  than  forty  days." 

Contreras'  Italian  service  was  ended  by  a  quarrel  with 
his  superior,  the  Count  of  Monterrey,  who  had  nevertheless 
done  him  many  favors  and  whom  he  admired  extremely, 
as  he  tells  us  at  some  length.  The  Captain  fell  in  with  one 
of  his  many  brothers,  and  persisted  in  trying  to  raise  him 
to  honors  that  he  did  not  deserve,  we  must  suppose,  for 
none  of  the  authorities  would  grant  the  favors  asked. 
Contreras,  with  his  usual  obstinacy,  disregarded  the  advice 
of  all  his  friends  and  well-wishers  and  left  Naples  sooner 
than  yield  a  jot.  Within  a  few  months  he  received  a  Com- 
mandery  in  the  Order  of  Malta. 

The  manuscript  breaks  off  abruptly  in  the  year  1633, 
just  as  the  author  attempts  once  more  to  procure  a  place 
for  his  unlucky  brother.  Several  sheets  are  missing.  How 
much  farther  the  autobiography  extended  in  its  original 
form,  we  do  not  know.  If,  as  Contreras  states,  he  wrote 
the  greater  part  in  the  space  of  eleven  days,  most  of  the 


18 


material  being  twenty  years  or  more  old,  he  either  possessed 
a  wonderful  memory,  kept  a  diary  or  invented  freely,  for 
there  is  more  detail  in  the  early  j^ears  than  later.  The 
stirring  events  that  occurred  before  1610  are  described 
with  as  much  freshness  and  verve  as  if  they  were  not  a 
week  old.  Whichever  was  the  method,  he  was  a  gifted 
writer. 


VI 

I  feel  that  I  have  done  faint  justice  to  one  of  the  most 
individual  of  books,  evidently  written  for  the  public  and 
withheld  from  it  so  long.  The  one  short  volume  contains 
no  end  of  quotable  stories,  but  nothing  less  than  a  transla- 
tion can  convey  the  color  of  the  original.  The  Captain's 
particular  art  was  the  subjugation  of  rebellious  recruits. 
One  must  read  how  shrewdly  he  dealt  with  the  thieves  at 
Ecija;  with  what  a  combination  of  diplomacy  and  courage 
he  quelled  the  mutineers  at  Cadiz ;  how  neatly  he  persuaded 
his  company  to  remain  five  days  at  Nola  during  an  eruption 
of  Vesuvius,  while  ashes  rained  and  lava  flowed  about  them, 
till  orders  came  to  withdraw.  Nor  w^as  he  awed  by  the 
great.  One  of  the  most  amusing  passages  tells  how  he 
defied  the  governor  of  Romagna,  planning  to  give  him  a 
sound  beating  and  then  flee  beyond  his  jurisdiction.  And 
even  if  we  make  allowance  for  the  natural  bravado  of  a 
soldier-author,  it  appears  that  he  faced  the  dignitaries  of 
the  Spanish  court  and  Philip  IV  himself,  with  the  mettle 
of  a  man  who  has  dealt  more  wounds  than  he  has  received. 
Each  of  these  anecdotes,  despatched  in  a  graphic  page, 
would  have  furnished  Merimee  a  story  and  Dumas  a  novel. 

I  have  many  times  observed  one  point  of  similarity 
between  the  productions  of  the  greatest  intellects  and  those 
of  the  crude  and  uncultivated.  Writers  may  be  divided 
into  three  layers:  at  the  top  the  supreme  thinkers,  and  at 
the  bottom  the  quite  untrained.    Between  them  lies  a  vast 


19 

host  of  clever  quill-drivers  who  write  easily  and  possess 
a  style,  but  whose  ideas  are  drowned  in  a  river  of  harmon- 
ious words.  Amiel  called  the  medium  of  expansion  a  neces- 
sary pate,  and  regretted  that  he  was  not  able  to  produce 
it.  It  might  be  named  an  excipient,  like  that  used  by 
pharmacists  in  compounding  pills,  to  hold  the  true  medi- 
caments and  give  them  bulk.  Literature  from  the  top  and 
bottom  layers  is  alike  in  lacking  make-weight.  When  we 
read  Montaigne  or  Bacon  or  Pascal  we  are  astonished  to 
find  an  idea  in  every  line,  just  symbol  of  the  powerful 
brain  that  conceived.  An  ordinary  man  may  also,  if  he 
write  little,  say  nothing  that  is  not  of  meaning. 

Contreras  falls  in  the  latter  class.  Having  certain  deeds 
to  narrate,  he  did  it  with  wise  avoidance  of  the  superfluous 
and  a  skill  in  wording  that  is  far  above  the  average.  His 
haphazard  style  is  the  despair  of  a  grammarian  and  the 
delight  of  a  lover  of  racy  Castilian.  To  find  an  antecedent 
for  all  his  relatives  or  a  subject  for  all  his  verbs  is  as  hard 
as  to  lay  bare  the  motives  of  all  his  acts.  But  he  was  not 
for  nothing  the  contemporary  of  Cervantes  and  Quevedo; 
the  picturesque  word  falls  from  his  pen  without  an  effort, 
although  he  says : ' '  Here  goes  my  book,  dry  and  unwatered, 
as  God  created  it  and  I  was  able,  without  rhetoric  nor 
quillets,  formed  only  on  the  truth."  It  is  a  book  that  can 
be  read  word  by  word. 

Eesearch  has  not  revealed  the  history  of  Alonso  de 
Contreras'  final  years.  Historians  of  the  period  do  not 
mention  him,  although  a  few  of  his  official  petitions  have 
been  found.  He  tells  us  that  he  was  honored  with  the 
friendship  of  the  fertile  playwright.  Lope  de  Vega,  whose 
house  he  shared  as  guest  during  more  than  eight  months. 
"We  know  that  Lope,  phoenix  of  intellects  and  king  of 
improvisators,  dedicated  a  drama  to  the  Captain.  In  the 
prefatory  note  the  poet  recounts  the  salient  exploits  of  his 
friend  and  promises  to  write  a  lengthy  poem  about  them. 
He  never  did,  and  perhaps  the  Captain  was  led  by  the 
omission  to  set  them  down  himself.     The  world  was  the 


30 


gainer;  no  flowery  octaves  could  match  the  soldier's  jerky, 
honest  phrases. 

We  do  not  know  when  Don  Alonso  died,  nor  how. 
''Hung,  king  of  an  isle,  governor  of  a  city,  monk,  beggar, 
brilliant  officer?"  asks  the  French  translator;  for  in  life 
he  had  been  all  but  the  first.  We  do  not  know.  But  we 
will  take  oath  that  the  old  warrior  set  his  face  to  the  foe, 
and  that  the  reaper  did  not  conquer  him  without  a  struggle. 


Gay  lord  ^rl 

Makers 


Syracuse 


Nl 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN   DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


l8Dec56BC 

REC'D  LD 

DEC  5    13-'. 

LD  21-100m-6,'56 
(B9311sl0)476 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


